Creative Prompts:
1. What does Meaning and Purpose look like for you?
James Dickson was able to find purpose and meaning in his art practice, which helped in his recovery.
What are things in your everyday life that feel meaningful and give you purpose?
Comment on this thread with your answers.
2. Purposeful Looking
When we talk about ‘meaning’ in relation to artworks, we often are looking for symbols or representative features that we can build interpretations from. The meaning of artworks is subjective – it will be different for everyone.
A big part of the role of art historians and curators, like those that work at The Dax Centre, is to research artist stories and learn about their lives, and interpret the artworks in this context. They also work with symbols present in the artwork to help construct meaning.
Having examined the artworks and read James Dickson’s artist stories, what meanings do you draw from the artworks above? What symbols can you identify?
To make discussion easier, here are the titles of the artworks in order above:
1. Minerals and Energy
2. Benito’s Treasure
3. Madalik Eagle Bird
4. The Abalone
5. Transport Thing
3. Creating Meaning
Taking inspiration from Jame Dickson’s artworks, this creative prompt encourages you to create a black pen ink drawing.
Grab an ink black pen (or a nice and sharp pencil) and some blank sheets of paper.
Reflect on your own mental health journey, what gives you meaning.
Write down five words.
For each word, draw a symbol next to it that represents that word. Take inspiration from the style of James’ drawings – they can be abstract or life-like, intricate (using thin, fine lines) or robust (thick, chunky lines).
Now, draw a rectangle on your sheet of paper.
Using repetitive drawings, fill the rectangle with the symbols you’ve created, as James has used repetitive symbols to create his artworks. The symbols can take on different sizes and iterations as you recreate them over and over inside your rectangle. Just as meaning and purpose change throughout our lives.
Take a picture of your artwork and share it on to the thread. You’re welcome to share the meaning of your symbols, or just the image – up to you!
